By CHARLES COLSON
How does a Christian talk about faith with a seeker? Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. So much depends on the seeker: what he or she already knows, their questions and objections – and these days there is an overwhelming number of questions.
That’s why a wonderful new book written by my friend Art Lindsley, C. S. Lewis’s Case for Christ, is so valuable. In it, Art shows how one of the greatest Christian thinkers of the twentieth century managed, in his life and in his work, to be nearly all things to all people.
Art adopts a fresh approach to the material by framing it with a story about a discussion group gathering in a bookstore to talk about the works of Lewis. Each chapter opens and closes with a vignette about this fictional group, which is made up of very different people who are there for very different reasons. There’s a mother interested in children’s literature; an atheist who wants to know how Lewis “was duped into believing in a God”; a woman on a “spiritual quest” who thinks that all religions are equally true; a nominal Christian; and a man who’s “just here for the coffee.” The group’s only committed believer is its leader, John, who does his best to answer the group’s questions about Lewis, literature, and God.
Despite their major differences, these people keep coming back for more, because Lewis has something to offer each one of them. In fact, one of the most remarkable things about Lewis has always been the breadth of his appeal. Lovers of fantasy are drawn by his magnificent imagination; logical thinkers are attracted by his careful, methodical, and brilliant reasoning. Even atheists like Art’s fictional character Simon find Lewis appealing – after all, Lewis was once one of them. On his long, difficult path to the Christian faith, he experienced the same struggles, doubts, and questions that other atheists face. Seekers of all kinds have found in Lewis something to which they can relate. And as the book demonstrates, even people who have never thought that deeply about faith often find themselves doing so when they encounter his arguments. I know, because it was Lewis’s book Mere Christianity that God used so powerfully in my conversion thirty-two years ago.
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[Order C. S. Lewis’s Case for Christ: Insights from Reason, Imagination And Faith from Amazon.com]
